All Your Dreams Are Strange
by Jael K
Summary: Earth-2's Mayor Leonard Snart is navigating a post-Zoom world-squabbling with the city council, dealing with his best friend, escaping his security detail-when he meets an intriguing newcomer to Central City. Now, if they can just figure out how to navigate these things together. (Prequel to "Another World, Some Other Time.")


I don't know what's gotten into my muse lately. But I'm running with it!

Way back when I started writing fanfic again, one of my first Legends/CC fics was "Another World, Some Other Time," in which Leonard and Sara "meet" their Earth-2 counterparts. Sort of. At random a week or two ago, I started turning around the idea of a prequel, a story about how E-2 Len and Sara met.

This is that story.

Right now, I'm thinking four or five chapters. Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

* * *

Leonard Snart has escaped again.

There's no pursuit and no security outcry, no alarm or notice. Just one mayor, walking quickly down the Main Street sidewalk away from City Hall with a grin of insurrection and smug pleasure in his own cleverness—and the knowledge that his secretary is going to glare at him on Monday, although she probably won't make him pay in other ways.

Probably.

That's only fair, really. He's supposed to keep office hours until 5 p.m. on Fridays, and only his appointment to meet with the new YWCA director was going to get him out of that a little early. Skipping out a little earlier still, while Mariah was occupied with a delivery, will just allow him to ensure that the conservative, anti-meta faction of the city council doesn't have another chance to beard him in his den before the weekend, making him late for the other appointment and ending a long week on a note that will sour things even more.

He counts that as a win.

Mariah was going to be disapproving anyway, he decides, taking off his suit coat, nodding to a passing older couple he recognizes as local business owners. Not only does she have old-fashioned ideas about how the mayor should require others to come to him instead of going to them, she's going to be appalled he didn't take a security detail, or at least someone to take notes.

 _Now_ , it might be a breach of protocol to go by himself. Not all that long ago, it could have been a death sentence.

But Zoom is gone, and the fall day is mild and sunny, and he's made it out of City Hall without saying something he shouldn't to one of the obstinate council members or anyone else. He's on his way to a place he recalls fondly, to talk to someone he's really quite curious to meet, and life…is good.

(A bit lonely, maybe, a tiny voice inside comments, but good. Right?)

Then it gets even better.

"Snart!"

"Oof!" Leonard finds himself lifted off his feet in a bear hug, but although he's taken by surprise, he knows who this is, knows the voice and the hug and even the faint scent—woodsmoke and spice, an incongruous combination. "You…Mick! Down!" When he's lowered to the ground and can breathe again, he adjusts his shirt and tie, picks up his fallen jacket and runs a hand over the close-cropped hair that's nearly incapable of being mussed, giving the other man a glare that would make Mariah proud. "What the..." A glance around. "... _hell_ are you doing back in the city? I thought you were in Gotham."

His oldest and best friend roars with laughter, unconcerned with his friend's mayoral dignity. "Meetings with the publisher finished early," he says cheerfully, clapping Leonard on the back. "So I decided to come home a bit. Maybe do an impromptu signing. Relax, you know? I'm not a workaholic like you."

Leonard gives that statement the eyeroll it deserves.

What seems long ago now, Leonard Snart and Michael Rory had been challenged to make something of themselves that belied their trouble-prone beginnings. They'd both, independently, gotten in minor trouble with the law and both, independently, been remitted to a program designed to keep young offenders out of juvie. While the program—run through the Central City YWCA—had been designed to help the plethora of fatherless or orphaned boys still affected by the fallout from the War of the Americas, Leonard (whose father had died in the line of duty, technically, as a Central City cop) had been accepted due to a thoughtful judge.

There, he'd met Mick, one of those fatherless boys, and they'd hit it off nearly immediately. Neither of them had had a good relationship with a father society now remembered as a hero (war casualty and cop, respectively) and both were really too smart for their own good, although Mick's natural inclination was to hide his intelligence and Leonard had a tendency to flaunt his to an occasionally obnoxious extent.

Dr. Diane Carberra, director of the program, had seen something special in them both. Instead of punishing them or scolding them, she'd challenged them—to become the men their fathers hadn't been, to use that intelligence, to set goals, to make a difference. And they'd responded.

Now, decades later, Leonard was the mayor of Central City, lauded as a hero himself (by some, anyway) for holding things together as much as possible during Zoom's reign of terror. Mick was one of Central's most loved native sons, an award-winning and best-selling author known for both his wildly entertaining novels and his detail-filled travelogues.

And they were still best friends.

"What, they let you out without a keeper?" Mick comments, glancing around the city streets as if to pinpoint a member of the security staff or some other sort of handler. "That's rare, isn't it?"

Leonard doesn't dignify that with an answer. "You didn't say you were going to be back in town," he merely observes, setting off at a walk again. "I'd have cleared my schedule."

Mick falls into step beside him. "I gotta a key," he shrugs. "I can get in the house. But I figured I'd go looking for you."

Some of the more conservative residents of Central hadn't been quite sure what to make of a mayoral candidate whose easy acknowledgement of past relationships with men and women meant they were required to look up the word "pansexual." Then, at least one blogger had tried to make an issue out of the fact the candidate lived with author Michael Rory (at least, when Rory was in town) only to be confounded by the facts that, one, the vast majority of the voting public didn't care all that much— especially if Leonard was a strong enough leader to hold the city against Zoom—and two, this cohabitation didn't at all suggest what he thought it did.

Mick might write romance adeptly, but he wasn't interested in, in his words, "playin' those damned games" himself, not when it came to romance and not when it came to sex.

They'd found their labels together, back when they were starting college—pan for Len, and aro/ace for Mick—and if some people thought that made them something of an odd pair, well, that was OK. They knew what they were to each other.

"I'm actually heading to the YWCA," Leonard comments to his friend as they continue. "Going to meet the new director. There should still be familiar faces there, if you want to come with me. Just don't glower at the new director. She didn't oust Dr. Carberra, she's just succeeding her." He smirks a little at Mick's noise of annoyance. "Don't 'hmph' about it. Doc deserves her retirement. And last email I got, she's enjoying California."

Mick mutters to himself, but shrugs. "I know," he acknowledges. "I promised to do a signing at the library in her town when the new book comes out. But it don't seem right. She's part of Central City to me, always will be."

"I hear you."

The old brick building, one of the oldest in the city, has been expanded and updated through the years, but it still looks much the same. The security system is much more in-depth than when they were kids, and Leonard buzzes at the door, politely identifying himself and Mick for the receptionist and security and waiting for the double doors to unlock.

"Michael!" The eager call makes them both laugh, and Leonard steps back, grinning, as a small, white-haired shape hurtles (as much as a fairly spry 86-year-old woman can hurtle) toward them. The receptionist…a volunteer since they were teenagers, one who'd decided the two scruffy teens needed some mothering and provided homemade food and occasionally questionable reading material accordingly…latches on to Mick, holding onto his arm and speaking earnestly to him.

"…I loved 'Playing with Fire,' it was amazing. And so did my book club! I was wondering, dear, if you might be able to speak again sometime. Oh, yes, hello, Lenny…oh, sorry, Mr. Mayor. Michael, and I know the new one comes out…"

The mayor, hardly difficult to track down in Central City, is relatively ignored in favor of the famous author. Len, grinning at Mick's patient expression, nods to the amused security guard and strolls down the hallway toward the director's office, figuring that there's no reason he can't just politely introduce himself. No need to stand on ceremony.

Unless this Sara Lance is the sort who stands on ceremony. He hopes not. He'd rather like to hope he can work well with her.

Leonard pauses outside the closed office door, eyeing the shiny new plaque with the new name on it. He studies his suit coat and the dusty marks from where he'd dropped it, then shrugs, leaving it off. And then he reaches up and raps on the door, waiting as the sound echoes.

No answer.

Maybe he should have checked at the front desk. Or maybe wires had been crossed and she _had_ gone to his office? No, someone would have said something. Leonard checks his watch. He's a few minutes early. He should just wait.

Instead, he does something he knows is foolish. He tries the door handle.

It opens easily, and Len, feeling vaguely sneaky, peers around the side of the door. The office is, indeed, empty of people. The obvious lack of some familiar furnishings—Doc's big painting of the sunrise over the Central City skyline, the Tardis lamp a much younger Leonard Snart had given her—causes a sudden pang, and he leans in just a little more, thinking about the time he'd spent in this office, and challenges given and accepted.

Then something in the corner catches his eye, intrigues him enough to push the door open and take an illicit step inside.

There's a training dummy in the corner of the big office, an empty weapons rack on the wall next to it, and mats spread around it. Leonard blinks at it, trying to make his brain catch up to the image.

Doc had been very committed to the philosophy of nonviolence; she and Leonard had talked about it, over tea or coffee in this very office—debated, really, especially when Zoom had been at large and Leonard had been first running for mayor and then serving his first term in office. He hadn't completely agreed then, and he doesn't now, but given that he knows Doc had hand-picked her successor, the martial arts equipment is a slight surprise.

"Hello?"

The tone is dry and just loaded with enough question to hold an edge of threat. Len spins, feeling sheepish, ready to offer smooth apologies and explanations, but he freezes when he actually first sets eyes on the new owner of this office, who'd entered through the door at the rear.

Sara Lance is gorgeous.

She's dressed fairly casually, a black shirt and a sleeveless blue blouse, her blond hair loose around her shoulders. He can see the muscles in her bare arms, testament that the martial arts equipment is, indeed, hers, and her blue eyes are direct, studying him. She holds herself like a dancer, a fighter, balance and strength and grace, and oh hell, is he a sucker for that sort of badassery.

A bit younger than he is, but he'd already known that. Doc had tried to fill him in, but loathe to acknowledge she was leaving, he hadn't listened much.

Doc is probably laughing her ass off in California right now.

"Hi," he says after a long moment, one in which he's aware he's been staring.

The blond woman's lips quirk. "Hi," she returns, leaning against her desk, relaxing just a tad and watching him. "Mayor Snart, I presume? I admit, I wasn't just expecting you to just saunter in like you own the place."

Ah, hell. "Yes. I'm sorry, I...ah." He sighs. "I spent a lot of time here back in the day," he says, moving closer, meeting her eyes and training to convey sincerity. "Your predecessor was...is...a friend. A mentor." He pauses. "Actually, she probably saved my life."

Lance tilts her head, watching him, but her eyes have softened just a little. "She's spoken of you," she says. "Dr. Carberra. Said she thinks we'll work well together."

 _Oh, she did, did she?_ "I'm not usually one for breaking and entering...well, there was no breaking involved, really, but..." He looks around the office. "It's odd and a little disconcerting to see things looking different."

Lance nods, accepting that, as he takes in other differences: New books on the shelves, new photos on the desk, the empty spot on the wall where the big skyline painting had hung.

"I'm surprised Barbara didn't let me know you were here," she comments, still eyeing him closely.

Oops. "My friend's distracting her," he admits. "That wasn't on purpose. She'd just rather talk books with him than city business with me. And he's the one who spends a lot of time on the road."

That gets her attention. "Friend?" she questions. "I've read...Michael Rory? I'd like to meet him."

"I think that can be arranged." The author is always more interesting than the mayor. "Anyway...let's start over." He extends a hand. "Mayor Leonard Snart. Welcome to Central."

His hasty recovery gets a smile and she lets him get away with it. "Sara Lance," she returns, giving him a firm handshake. He can feel weapons callouses. "Thank you." She gestures to one of the overstuffed chairs off to the side, not the more formal ones around the desk. "These are more comfortable..."

"I know them well."

Once they're settled, Sara with the iced coffee she'd left the room to get, Len with a bottle of water, they regard each other again.

"So," he says finally, "breaking and entering notwithstanding, I just wanted to introduce myself, to tell you welcome, and to see what you might have in mind for your tenure here." He shrugs a little. "Doc...Dr. Carrera was always very involved with the community, and she was here a long time in one capacity or another. And now that things are starting to get back to normal after...after Zoom...we're starting to find our feet again. It's an interesting time."

Lance acknowledges that with a tip of her head. "Zoom," she muses, staring into her coffee. "I've read...that must have been...yes. Interesting."

There are other words for it. Leonard lets his eyes focus on the spines of the books on the shelf behind her, the titles blurring. So many people had just left the city, but he'd stayed, determined to do _something_. And then, elected to office, walking the line, protecting his city and keeping himself alive and his people safe without bowing down to the meta any more than he had to...

There'd been days he couldn't imagine a life without that tightrope walk. It's still a shock, sometimes, the absence of that tension. Compared to that, city politics are a piece of cake.

Sara takes a sip of her drink, and Len blinks, aware suddenly of how long he's been silent. He takes a swig of his water, mustering his thoughts.

"Yes," he says finally. "They say there's a lot of PTSD being diagnosed in the city now, and I get that. But we made it through. We have a meta protector now, a speedster, and we have...resources. We can come back." He darts a glance at her, deciding not to go into the meta question for now. "So, you're from Star City, originally?"

Sara's eyes are on his, and he thinks for a moment that she won't let him change the subject. But then she nods.

"I grew up in Star City. My mother still lives there," she says, then pauses, as if considering something, then nods to herself.

"My father died in an accident when I was 11," Sara continues, nodding again as she sees him register that she's willing to get a bit personal. "My older sister, who'd always been the disciplined one...she promptly went off the rails." She glances away; the subject is obviously difficult for her. "Made it through high school, then vanished. We haven't seen her in years now." She shakes her head as Leonard tries to figure out what to say. "I guess I tried to compensate—I'd been the wild one before that—and I wanted to work with women in crisis."

"Understandable," he murmurs thoughtfully, and gets a small smile in return before she continues.

"I had my bachelor's degree three years out of high school, went on for a master's in social work. During that time, I started working in National City, at a women's shelter, then moved back to Star for a year. I met Dr. Carberra when she visited, and she encouraged me to apply for this job when she decided to retire." She spreads her hands out. "And that's me."

Leonard lifts an eyebrow at her, then turns his head to glance over at the training dummy and weapons rack. Lance follows his gaze, then laughs.

"And, yes, I'm a black belt, in a few disciplines," she allows, grinning at him and getting an answering smirk in return. "I like the activity, and I've found teaching classes to women gives them a feeling of...of control, not necessarily in a self-defense way—although sometimes that—but simply in having control over an aspect of their lives." She shrugs and smirks a little. "And it occurred to me that, in the never-ending battle to be taken seriously as a woman, the clear signs of weapons proficiency couldn't hurt."

Leonard can't help himself; he snorts in amusement, liking Sara Lance a good deal. "I can't argue with that," he agrees. "Maybe I should borrow something, have an unsheathed sword lying on my desk next time I squabble with the council."

"You'd be welcome to," she tells him solemnly, then smiles again. "And you? I know the basics. But most of the articles I've seen are more about city business than anything…" A pause, and a shrug. "Personal."

He's not deluding himself, is he, that there are sparks here, or at the very least, interest that's more than polite? Len doesn't think so. Well…he won't overstep, but he'd like to see if he's correct.

"My dad was a cop," he tells her slowly, shifting in his seat, trying to feel his way through this story he's rarely told anyone, wondering why he wants to tell her. "He died on the job when I was 8."

She murmurs condolences, but he's already waving them off. "Of course, he'd been an abusive jerk to me, my mom, and my baby sister," he said drily, "so it was kind of hard to take when people started lauding him as a hero. My mom kind of checked out and then got sick; I was caring for Lisa; I was angry and desperate. I might have gone down a different road, but..." He looks around the office, knowing his thoughts are pretty clear on his face, then back at her.

There's understanding there, a degree of understanding he thinks he's seen in few others. She nods, conveying that, and Leonard continues.

"I know there's been criticism of the programs here that deal with men and boys, given that the stated mission is to protect and uplift women," he says quietly. "But…they broke the cycle, with me. And with Mick, too." He shrugs, then moves on.

"I went through Quad-C—Central City Community College—then transferred to the university. Then I went to law school. Passed the bar, then practiced here a while, dealing with kids like the one I could've been. And then…"

"Zoom."

"Yeah." He frowns. "No one wanted the job, with all the violence and the deaths…the only one who steps up to run was an..." He catches himself. Don't swear in front of the lady, Leonard, at least not until you know her better. "…a bit… unprincipled. So I did it. And I won."

Lance regards him a moment, then nods. "And the rest is history?" she says with a smile.

"As they say."

They watch each other, both smiling a little, then Len turns his head with a sigh as he hears Mick's bellow of laugh coming closer, knowing that their time here alone is coming to an end. Lance seems to get it, nodding again as she gets to her feet.

"I think we _will_ work well together, Mr. Mayor," she says, a sparkle in her eyes, holding out her hand again. "And I look forward to it."

"So do I." Leonard is carefully not to hold on to her hand any longer than necessary. He finds himself loathe to leave, wondering what this intriguing woman thinks of the meta programs he's been responsible for, the safehouses for LGBTQ+ teens he's been fighting for, the…

He lets go, wondering if he's imagining reluctance in her own demeanor, then turns for the door…

And for once, he gives in to impulse.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he asks suddenly, turning back. "Sometime? Coffee? Get off on a better foot, without the, ah, breaking into your office? Show you a bit of the city?"

 _You're babbling, Snart_.

Lance looks momentarily surprised—but then, yes, pleased, he thinks. Oh, thank god, maybe he hasn't screwed this up.

"I'd like that," she says simply. "I'm busy tomorrow, but…Sunday? Maybe late morning? It looks like It's supposed to be a lovely day."

Leonard nods, feeling oddly like the teenager he'd been here, long ago. "How's 11 a.m.? I'll meet you at the CC Jitters by the waterfront?"

"The one near the sculpture park?"

"The same."

"You're on."

Yes, that's definitely a spark in her eyes. He grins at her. "Again, pleased to meet you, Director Lance."

"The same, Mayor Snart."


End file.
